A Tidbit for Friday

One interesting remark I came across in Coppard's memoir was that a Jewish soldier in his regiment was allowed, in the spring of 1916, a week's home leave to attend Passover services. Many soldiers in the unit, according to Coppard, had not had any home leave since arriving in France. Coppard had, himself, been given about a week's compassionate home leave when his stepfather died at the beginning of 1916. That had been his first time back in England since embarking at Folkestone on 1 June1915.

In passing, I remark that Coppard had clearly read Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That, and read it very closely, before writing his own account of the war. Several times already (I'm about two-thirds through the short volume) he has mentioned Graves, either confirming his observations, remarking that their experiences were different, or questioning whether Graves quite understood some of the things he saw.

He has presented a pretty thorough impression of the attitudes towards the enemy in his unit. It began largely with a rather cautious dislike, the sort of instinctive but not very personal hostility that soldiers might have to an enemy they had not personally encountered. By the time they reach the winter of 1915/1916, however, he and his comrades had suffered enough from the attentions of the foe that there was no question of a Christmas Truce and, in fact, a positive willingness to take opportunities to kill the enemy. And when a group of German soldiers, under the pretense of surrendering, approached the British lines close enough to mount a devastating grenade attack, Coppard and others resolved simply to shoot any enemy in future that appeared to be attempting to surrender.